EU Fails To Hold Pakistan Accountable Once Again

On December 7, two Muslims abducted a 14-year-old Christian girl in Pakistan. Her brother, Sahil George, believes the assault was an act of revenge over a prior dispute. 

George, a 21-year-old member of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Sahiwal (Punjab Province), says the perpetrators were Muhammad Bilal Arshad and Muhammad Zohaib, who took her sister to a house at gunpoint. A medical examination later confirmed that she was raped, George told Christian Daily International. 

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident. Women and girls from religious minority communities in Pakistan face a heightened risk of sexual violence at the hands of Muslim men. Reports indicate an increasing trend impacting Christians and Hindus who are abducted, raped, forced to convert to Islam, and ‘marry’ their abductor. Many families never see their girls again, and the authorities rarely take action to bring perpetrators to justice.

“Minority women in Pakistan are at greater risk of sexual violence and other forms of abuse compared to the general female population,” said Albert Patras, a human rights activist who works with female survivors of violence in South Punjab. “In many cases, perpetrators of crimes against minority women escape accountability,” he said. “In this case, one of the primary accused, Bilal, has reportedly been released based on Zohaib’s confession, even though the child herself has clearly identified Bilal as being involved in her abduction.”

Ten days after this crime, on December 17, 2025, the EU-Pakistan Joint Commission met in Brussels. The commission was co-chaired by Muhammad Humair Karim, the Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Pakistan, and Paola Pampaloni, the Acting Managing Director for Asia and the Pacific in the European External Action Service. It was agreed to hold the next session of the EU-Pakistan Joint Commission in Islamabad in 2026. 

The EU granted Pakistan Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP+) status in January 2014, allowing the country to benefit from preferential access to the EU market. According to the European Commission’s official website, “the EU’s GSP+ removes import duties from products coming into the EU market from vulnerable developing countries.”

In 2023, the total EU imports from Pakistan amounted to €8.0 billion, of which €6.2 billion were imported using the GSP+ preferences. This makes Pakistan the largest beneficiary among all GSP+ countries.

The latest GSP+ monitoring mission (November 24–December 3, 2025) scrutinized Pakistan’s record on 27 international conventions tied to the trade scheme. They identified 13 critical areas of concern, such as forced disappearances, torture, and media freedom. Yet, no concrete step has since been taken by the EU to bring Pakistan to account for its regression of rights, violations against press freedom, and severe abuses of religious minorities, among other issues.

This past November, Pakistan adopted its 27th Constitutional Amendment through one of the fastest and most contentious processes in recent history. 

“By creating a Federal Constitutional Court, expanding executive’s control over judicial appointments, granting lifelong immunity to the President and military leadership, and strengthening the army’s influence, the amendment represents the most significant restructuring of Pakistan’s judicial and executive powers under its 1973 Constitution,” writes lawyer Zainab Malik.

This amendment has shattered Pakistan’s judicial independence by creating a Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) appointed by the president/prime minister, stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction. It has also formalized the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) role and granted lifetime immunity to Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, “constitutionalizing impunity.” This emboldens Munir’s regime, fueling violent suppression of dissent, media crackdowns, and the weaponization of laws that endanger dissidents and military critics. 

Meanwhile, the suppression of dissent and media remains a massive problem in Pakistan. Building on this constitutional capture, Pakistan’s regime deploys weaponized laws like the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) to dominate the digital space and silence criticism. 

In 2025 alone, PECA has ensnared numerous journalists. Khalid Jamil was arrested by the National Cybercrime Investigation Agency (NCIA) on August 22 at his Islamabad home. Waheed Murad, an Urdu News reporter, was detained on March 25 for allegedly creating anti-state content. Farhan Mallick, founder of the Raftar news platform, was arrested in March for anti-state posts. Ghulam Rasool Khan, an NNI correspondent, was arrested on September 20 after reporting on an illegal online money laundering network. Sohrab Barkat of Siasat.pk was detained at Lahore airport on November 26—despite a court travel order—because he interviewed an opposition figure, Sanam Javed. 

Transnational repression extends this reach as Pakistan continues to target dissidents abroad. Former special assistant to Pakistan’s ex-prime minister Mirza Shahzad Akbar, for instance, suffered a fractured nose and other facial injuries after being attacked at his home in the United Kingdom. Akbar, who has lived in self-imposed exile since 2022, said an unknown assailant dressed in “construction or waste-collection attire” attacked him on December 25 in Cambridge. He experienced a similar incident in November 2023, when a masked individual threw acidic liquid at Akbar’s home in Hertfordshire. 

Similarly, US-based Pakistani journalists and activists Moeed Pirzada, Ahmad Noorani, Imran Riaz Khan, Wajahat S. Khan, Shaheen Sehbai, and Sabir Shakir all face NCIA (National Cyber ​​Crime Investigation Agency) cases, warrants, or terrorism charges because of their social media activities. Human rights lawyers Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha were also indicted under PECA for “anti-state” tweets, with evidence recorded in their absence and forced state counsel, a scenario which highlights zero due process.

While the EU Executive ignores it, torture and ill-treatment of detainees and political prisoners remain epidemic in Pakistan. According to a 2025 report by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT),

Torture is widespread and systemic in Pakistan, especially within law enforcement and detention facilities. For 2025, the Global Torture Index classifies the country as facing a high risk of torture and ill-treatment, based on data collected in 2023 and 2024. Police regularly employ torture, especially during arrests and interrogations, with the most concerning abuses affecting ethnic minorities, particularly Baloch communities, political activists, migrants and other vulnerable individuals, leading to repeated cases of severe injury, enforced disappearances and deaths. Institutional reliance on forced confessions, primarily stemming from the incentivisation of high conviction rates, aggravates the issue.

Imran Khan, the ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan, and his wife, Bushra Bibi, have remained imprisoned since 2023. They are enduring solitary confinement and torture. Alice Jill Edwards, the UN Special Rapporteur on torture, noted that Bushra Khan has been detained in a small cell that lacks minimum hygiene, has no ventilation, and is often plunged into darkness due to electricity cuts. 

In addition, Pakistan has refused to pause its 2023 Illegal Foreigners Repatriation Plan for Afghan refugees despite Afghanistan’s September 2025 6.0-magnitude earthquake. Tens of thousands of Afghans have since been deported from the country. Some have been received by some European governments. The government of Germany, for instance, has announced that it will admit the majority of Afghan refugees currently stranded in Pakistan who hold legally binding admission promises.

Meanwhile, Pakistan remains home to a plethora of radical Islamic terror groups of varying size, names, and influence. These terror groups often split, merge, and reappear. Religious minorities are increasingly trapped between these radical groups, the Islamic culture of Pakistani society, and a government appeasing these groups. 

The question is, why does the EU Executive continue to enable the Pakistani regime?

The EU’s failure in Pakistan is obvious. The 27th Amendment has handed the Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir unchecked military overreach—lifetime immunity, a puppet FCC, and formalized CDF powers—unleashing transnational repression, torture, and defiance of the 27 international conventions. Yet the EU’s response? A repeated rhetoric of “noting progress” and “reiterating commitments” at every Joint Commission, even as Pakistan sells $4 billion in arms to Libya in blatant violation of UN sanctions, directly endangering European security through destabilized Mediterranean routes and empowered militias.

This lackadaisical approach is not diplomacy—it is complicity. It subsidizes a regime shredding constitutional rights and exporting violence, all while EU trade perks flow unchecked via GSP+. Suspension is not optional; it is essential. The EU must act now to halt incentives funding a threat to its own borders—or risk rewarding impunity that boomerangs back to Europe.